Sledding
by zosimos
Summary: The Twelve Days of Ficmas, Day 05: Ed and Rian are staying with Al and Winry for the holiday, and they've got to keep the kids occupied somehow. Reverse'verse AU.


Rian Martin woke to an empty bed. He sat up with a yawn, scratching his hand through his tousled dark hair as he looked around the guest room, slightly confused. Usually, when they stay with Edward's brother the kids got Edward and Rian out of bed at unholy, sun-is-barely-visible hours. He distinctly did not remember being bounced on like a human trampoline, so that meant Edward had already gotten up and distracted the human wrecking crew know as the Elric children.

That was … unexpected. It usually took coffee and a crowbar to get Edward out of bed when he did not absolutely ihave/i to be up, and doubly so in the winter. Rian shivered in the brisk morning air, finding Edward's abandoned dressing gown dumped over a chair and shrugging into it. The robe was loose in the shoulders, and a little short on him. Rian tried not to smirk at this, in case Edward was waiting in the hall to pounce on him.

The entire house was strangely quiet. Rian padded downstairs - the holiday tree, with its uneven scattering of ornaments and garlands draped over its branches sat as a cheerful reminder of the festivities in store. There was coffee on, somewhere. He could smell it.

The kitchen too, was empty. There were a handful of dishes abandoned in the sink and the local paper was destroyed all over the table. Rian procured a cup of coffee - and then heard the dull sound of metal being worked on. Winry's workshop was adjacent to the kitchen, so that guests could go through the kitchen door and right in. Winry had an actual clinic in town where she saw patients and actually produced their automail but she was too much of a tinkerer not to have her own workroom in her home. Rian walked to the open doorway and peered in.

Sure enough, Winry was sitting at her workstation, wearing a pair of mechanic's overalls. She had bits of metal laid out before her - but they were not automail, not that Rian could discern. In fact, the metal looked like a pair of runners from a child's sled. Winry glanced over her shoulder, sensing someone's presence and pulling the safety goggle she was wearing off, settling them in her hair. "Oh, morning, Ri. Did I wake you?"

Rian smiled, Winry was the only person who called him Ri. "No. Where is everyone?"

"Al got called in to work for a few hours," Winry said. She picked up one of the runners and sighted along it, checking it over again for imperfections before setting it aside. "He said he'd be back before lunch, it wasn't as much of an emergency as Lieutenant Griffith was making it out to be, but we'll see. He wouldn't let Ed go with him, so he's outside, probably buried up to his neck in snow by the kids."

"Ah," Rian said, both of his hands warmed through the mug by his coffee. He watched Winry work curiously. "What are you _doing_?"

"Working on the sled," Winry said, matter-of-factly. "Alphonse destroyed it last year, and we never bothered to fix it since there hadn't been a healthy snow since." She put down the metal and picked up a screwdriver.

"Forgive me if this is a silly question, but why not just fix them with alchemy?" Rian asked. "Even if Al won't, I bet Edward could..." he trailed off when Winry gave him a flat look and he signed. "Okay, so you don't want them to be purple with flames on them, fair enough."

"That, and-" she picked up the two runners and held them out, judging them critically. "There's a finesse to it. Not that alchemy isn't amazing and useful, but sometimes the subtleties can be lost."

Rian nodded his head, shoulder leaned against the door frame. "Subtlety and Elrics don't mix very well."

Winry smiled, not looking up at him as she worked. "You know, Rian."

"Hm?" Rian took a sip of his coffee finally, and made a face at the strength of the brew. He could tell immediately that Edward had made this particular pot, he liked his coffee so strong it could run a car.

"I just want you to know, that," Winry looked up at him, brushing the bangs back over her shoulder and smiling honestly. "I don't remember seeing Ed as happy as I see him with you."

Rian smiled in return, his shoulder still pressed into the door frame. "Thank you," he said finally. "I'm glad."

The moment was interrupted by several loud, wall-shaking thuds against the side of the house. Winry gave a long, exaggerated sigh, rolling her eyes and turning back to the metal bits of the sled she had been working on. Rian shook his head, far too amused. "Maybe I should go check on them," he said, as the shriek of children's laughter could be heard from the outside.

"Please - oh, and do a limb count. I wouldn't put it past Thomas to try and take Ed's arm off if he thought he could get away with it."

"Oh, _goody,_" Rian said, and went to check on the children.

* * *

><p>True to his word, Alphonse reappeared shortly before lunch, hauling a brand new wooden sled under his arm. "I got a new sled," he called as he came through the door in the kitchen.<p>

Winry had been making sandwiches, the children banished to the living room to play with uncle Rian. Edward sat at the kitchen table, a little put out and slightly bruised. Apparently, Winry had not been kidding about him being buried up to his neck in snow - when Rian went to rescue Edward, Edward had been converted somewhat into a living snowman, and Thomas and Sarah had managed to roll him, squawking, down the hill.

"Good, good," Winry said. "Because I didn't spend most of the morning repairing the one you broke last winter, or anything."

Alphonse put his hands up in a supplicating gesture. "We were going to need two eventually anyway," he said. "Sarah's almost six, they won't want to share forever."

Winry shook her head but she smiled, slicing cheese from the block as Alphonse came over and put his hands on her waist. "You spoil them rotten," she said, as Alphonse kissed her neck. "You _both_ do."

"I don't spoil shit," Edward called from table, his chin in his hands. Alphonse glanced over at his brother in amusement, as Thomas came running through the living room into the kitchen.

"Dad's home!" he called out. "Whoa, a new sled!"

Thomas Elric, just recently turned eight, was already taller than both Edward and Alphonse had been at that age. His hair was dark blond and he had inherited Winry's oh-so-blue eyes. He had also inherited his uncle's propensity for getting into trouble up to his neck, although he had taken to automail instead of alchemy (something which Alphonse would not admit to breathing a sigh of relief over - keeping Edward in line had been chore enough).

"Look, no touch," Alphonse said from behind Winry. "The runners are very sharp, Thomas."

"_Cool!"_

Edward shook his head, watching Thomas fawn over the sled from as close as he could without physically touching it. "So what was the emergency on base?"

Alphonse huffed out a sigh, resting his chin on Winry's shoulder, or at least until she pushed at his face and shooed him away. "Soldiers get so overexcited over the holiday," he said. "There was reported movement on the southern border, but it turned out to be a herd of wild horses that live in the desert."

"Wild horses?" Edward said. "You're shitting me."

"Language," Winry said automatically.

"Yeah, they kicked up a dust cloud and everyone panicked, thought it was troop movement." Alphonse sat down at the head of the table. "We signed a peace treaty, everyone seems to want to forget that."

"Fuckin' idiots."

"_Language._" Winry intoned, slamming down a plate in front of Edward hard enough to make him jump. She glared at him a moment, and then glanced pointedly at Thomas, who had been ignoring them anyway. "Besides, both of you-" she looked at Alphonse, too, "need to leave your work at the office. It's the holidays."

"Yeah, yeah," Alphonse said, as Thomas slid into the seat across from Edward's.

"Dad, can we go sledding?"

Big, wide blue innocent eyes. Edward scowled at him and Thomas ignored it, or at least until Alphonse turned to look at Winry, which was when Thomas pulled a grotesque face at Edward.

"Brat!" Edward snapped.

Alphonse glanced back to Edward with a cocked eyebrow, and then over to his son, who had resumed an angelic countenance. The blood feud between Thomas and Edward was well-documented, to the point that neither party was ever presumed innocent. It tended to irritate Winry, but amuse Alphonse. There was no harm in it.

"I don't see why not," Alphonse said.

"After lunch," Winry said sternly. Thomas had already been halfway out of the kitchen, to the den where his coat and boots were. He slowed to a walk and sighed dramatically. "Go get your sister," Winry called after him. "And Rian, I'm almost done here."

When Thomas was out of the kitchen, she pointed the knife she had been using to slice cheese at Alphonse. "I resent being the disciplinarian, here, I just want you to know that."

"It's okay, Al will be big and scary an' hold them upside down outside the windows by their ankles when they're idiot teenagers and you can be the good guy then," Edward said, his mouth full of food.

"What he said," Alphonse said.

Edward wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and grinned at Alphonse. "Two sleds, huh?"

"I will beat your _ass,_ brother."

"That's what _you_ think."

Winry rolled her eyes heavenward, and made a note to herself to dig out the medical kit before they left.

* * *

><p>"I can't watch," Winry said. "Have they crashed yet?"<p>

Rian had his eyes shaded by one gloved hand. The sun was out in full force in a nearly cloudless blue sky, but despite the brightness of the day there was no warmth to the sunlight. "Al's run into a tree," he said. "I think Ed's skipped off the edge of a snowbank, I don't see him any more."

"Wonderful," Winry muttered. She was standing at the top of the hill beside Rian. "Did Al wreck the sled again?"

"Probably. He cheated, though, I saw him and Thomas try to shove Ed and Sarah over."

"Of course he did, my husband is approximately twelve and a half years old."

"Well, if Al is that old, it makes Ed, what, about six?" Rian snorted. Winry laughed at that, as Edward shouted obscenities, his head appearing out of the snowbank like a groundhog emerging from its den.

"He's going to teach my children every four-letter word there is," Winry growled, starting down the hill. "ED! Edward Elric I am going to wash your mouth out with soap when I get a hold of you-"

Rian could hear Edward's choked off noise, and watched him attempt to scrabble up the snowbank and bolt for the trees. Sarah brushed snow off the sled and started dragging it back up the hill as Winry tracked Edward into the woods. Rian stood at the top of the hill and just _laughed_.

* * *

><p>Promises to Keep - Prompt 5: "Sledding"<p> 


End file.
